Polyurea coatings are known in the industry for fast curing, ability to cure at wide temperature/humidity range and excellent performance properties. Polyurea coatings are very versatile and have wide-ranging applications as commercial and industrial protective coatings, and some aliphatic polyureas are used as decorative coatings on walls, floors and other surfaces. Most polyurea coatings are two component thermoset systems that can be applied as a thick coating in one pass if a high solids formulation is used, but usually the applied finish tends to be high in reflectivity or gloss. It is very difficult to reduce or downgloss high solids polyurea coating even with high loadings of gloss reducing agents because such coatings tend to have high viscosity and cure very quickly.
There are applications where a low gloss finish is required for functional or decorative purposes because they are aesthetically preferred. In general, low gloss industrial or commercial coating formulations tend to be low solids, water or solventborne systems and usually contain high loadings of gloss reducing agents such as inorganic silica. To attain low gloss in clear coats, coating compositions are loaded with an excess amount of gloss reducing agent, typically more than 10 weight percent based on the total weight of the composition of the gloss reducing agent. Unfortunately, the gloss reducing agent in these excessively loaded coating compositions tends to coagulate. As a result, the conventional low gloss coatings resulting therefrom can have visually unacceptable cloudy or seedy appearance. Furthermore, the presence of the excessive amount of these gloss reducing agents in a coating composition tends to make the resultant coatings more brittle than conventional coating compositions. Another limitation of the current low gloss waterborne or solventborne coatings are their ability to achieve a thick coating in one pass or application at wide temperature/humidity range because of the high water or solvent content in the formulations. Thus, a need exists in this art for durable low gloss coatings that can be applied in one pass and having a desirable appearance.